Overview

Henry York never dreamed his time in Kansas would open a door to adventure—much less a hundred doors. But a visit to his aunt and uncle’s farm took an amazing turn when cupboard doors, hidden behind Henry’s bedroom wall, revealed themselves to be portals to other worlds. Now, with his time at the farm drawing to a close, Henry makes a bold decision—he must go through the cupboards to find the truth about where he’s from and who his parents are. Following that trail will take him from one world to another, and ...

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This Book

Overview

Henry York never dreamed his time in Kansas would open a door to adventure—much less a hundred doors. But a visit to his aunt and uncle’s farm took an amazing turn when cupboard doors, hidden behind Henry’s bedroom wall, revealed themselves to be portals to other worlds. Now, with his time at the farm drawing to a close, Henry makes a bold decision—he must go through the cupboards to find the truth about where he’s from and who his parents are. Following that trail will take him from one world to another, and ultimately into direct conflict with the evil of Endor.

100 Cupboards Series

Editorial Reviews

Children's Literature
- Jamie Hain

Book two of the "100 Cupboards" series follows Henry York, an orphaned seventh-son from another world, on yet another time and space traveling adventure as he journeys through the cupboards at his adoptive uncle's farm in Kansas in search of his past. Henry's quest does not go unnoticed and soon Henry finds himself in the crosshairs of the evil Nimiane, who Harry accidentally freed in the first book; Darius, a powerful wizard who wants to add Henry's awakening power to his own; and a controlling Fairy Committee, desperate to hide their past actions. Along the way, Henry learns that what happens in the world through one cupboard can have a rippling and lasting effect on what happens in the worlds through other cupboards as his pursuers move from world to world chasing him, forcing his Kansas relatives to flee through the cupboards for survival. With the help of some new and unexpected friends, Henry beats the overwhelming odds to save not only himself and his Kansas relatives, but also his birth family and hometown from destruction. This book is great for readers looking for a fun adventure story that is wonderfully layered and complex, yet still easy to read. It would be a good addition to the fantasy section of any library serving preteens and young teens. Reviewer: Jamie Hain

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8

In this dense and worthy sequel to 100 Cupboards (Random, 2007), Henry York, having discovered that he, like his uncle Frank, actually comes from a world beyond the magic cupboards in his attic room, decides to enter it again. This is a last-ditch attempt to learn more about his origins and about the strange dandelion magic that has recently seared its way into his body. Henry, his cousin Henrietta, and the rest of his Kansas family end up scattered in different parts of the world from which both Henry and his uncle came, struggling against an evil witch and her powerful minion. The plot is complicated, and readers not familiar with the first book will be hopelessly confused. The shifting locations and the many characters and factions are bewildering, but most of the characters have such deliciously flawed and fascinating personalities that fans of that book will go with the flow, waiting to see what the next bend of plot might bring. A quiet and quirky humor warms up the proceedings as well, leavening even the most intense scenes. The ending is satisfying enough to serve as a series closer, but luckily for fans of this challenging but rewarding trilogy, there is still one more installment to come.-Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library

Kirkus Reviews

Picking up where 100 Cupboards (2006) left off, this new adventure finds young hero Henry York back in Kansas, sleeping fitfully next to a wall of doors that lead to secret worlds. Forces have been after Henry ever since he freed the remarkably evil Witch of Endor in his previous adventure. After a surprisingly painful run-in with a seemingly average dandelion, Henry is kidnapped and taken through one of the doors. Now his family has split up, trying desperately to find one another through the various openings, and Henry must find a way to battle the witch's forces and defeat Darius, a wizard of great power and filthy desires. Wilson has unfortunately strayed away from the sheer, wonderful weirdness of his previous fantasy to create something a little more staid and normal. This may earn it a wider readership, but it sacrifices much of the originality particular to the series. Still, it is a memorable sequel and fans will look forward to Henry's future adventures, wherever they might lead. (Fantasy. 9-12)

Related Subjects

Meet the Author

N. D. Wilson is the bestselling author of the Ashtown Burials series and Leepike Ridge. When he was a kid, he spent nearly a year living in his grandparents’ attic. If there were cupboards in those walls, he never found them. He and his wife live in Idaho, along with their five young explorers.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

Kansas is not easily impressed. It has seen houses fly and cattle soar. When funnel clouds walk through the wheat, big hail falls behind. As the biggest stones melt, turtles and mice and fish and even men can be seen frozen inside. And Kansas is not surprised.

Henry York had seen things in Kansas, things he didn’t think belonged in this world. Things that didn’t. Kansas hadn’t flinched.

The soles of Henry’s shoes were twenty feet off the ground. He had managed to slide open the heavy door in the barn loft, and after brushing the rust and flakes of red paint off his hands, he’d seated himself on the dust-covered planks and looked out over the ripening fields. Henry’s feet dangled, but Kansas sprawled.

Henry had changed in the short weeks since he’d stepped off the bus from Boston, been smothered by Aunt Dotty and taken to the old farmhouse, to the attic—to a new existence. He looked different, too, and it wasn’t just the cut across the backs of his fingers. That was scarring worse than it needed to only because he couldn’t stop himself from picking at it. The burns on his jaw were a lot more noticeable and had begun scarring as well. He didn’t like touching them. But he had to. Especially the one below his ear. It was turning into a divot as wide as his fingertip.

What had changed most about Henry York was inside his head. Things he had always known no longer seemed true. A world that had always felt like a slow and stable and even boring machine had suddenly come to life. And it was far from tame. He’d uncovered a wall of doors in his attic room, and now he didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know who his real parents were or whether he was even in the right world. He didn’t really know anything. Strangely, that was more comfortable than thinking that he did.

One month before, fresh off the bus from Boston, he would have been nervous sitting where he was, slowly bouncing his heels on the wall of the barn. One month before, he wouldn’t have believed that he could hit a baseball. Something wheezed beside him, and Henry turned. One month before, the world was still normal, and creatures like this one didn’t exist.

The raggant sniffed loudly and settled onto his haunches. His wings were tucked back against his rough charcoal skin and his blunt horn was, as always, lifted in the air.

Henry smiled. He always did when he looked at the animal. It was so proud and so very unaware of how it looked. At least Henry thought it had to be. Shaped like a small basset hound but wearing wings and a rhino’s face and skin, it was far from beautiful, but that didn’t stop it from being as proud and stubborn as a peacock. Like an otherworldly bloodhound, it had found Henry, cracking the plaster in the attic wall from inside a cupboard. The raggant had started everything. Whoever it was that had sent the raggant had started everything. Henry couldn’t even imagine who that might be.

“Do you know how strange you look?” Henry asked, and he reached over and grabbed the loose skin on the creature’s neck. It felt like sand-based dough, and as he squeezed, the raggant closed its black eyes and a low moan sputtered in its chest.

“I want to see you fly,” Henry said. “You know I will.” He glanced down at the ground and then back at the raggant. He could push it. Then it would have to fly. But it just might be proud enough not to, proud enough to tuck its wings tight and bounce in the tall grass. “Sometime,” Henry said.

The afternoon sun was falling, and Henry knew it wouldn’t be long before the barn’s shadow stretched across acres. Worse, it wouldn’t be long before the fields and the barn and all of Kansas became part of his past. His parents had been back from their ill-fated bicycle trip for a while, and he still hadn’t heard from them. That wasn’t too unusual. When they were just getting back from their photographed adventures, he rarely ever heard from them. The fact that they’d actually managed to get kidnapped this time would make their return crazier, would keep him safely off their minds for that much longer. But it couldn’t last. If they’d had any say in the matter, he never would have been sent to stay with his cousins at all. Now that they’d returned, they wouldn’t leave him in Kansas for school or even through the summer. He’d be back in Boston, on some new vitamin diet and meeting a new nanny, and then back to boarding school. Maybe a new one. His third.

Parents. He still thought of them that way. Would they ever have told him that Grandfather had found him in the attic? Not likely. Henry didn’t care that he’d been adopted. But it was hard not to care that his parents had never really been parents—not like Uncle Frank and Aunt Dotty were to his cousins. Henry had always known exactly where he was on his parents’ list of priorities.

Yesterday, he’d seen his parents on television. He’d been stirring his cereal and listening to his youngest cousin, Anastasia, complain about Richard when Uncle Frank called him. He’d hurried, and when he stepped into the room, Frank pointed. There, on a stiff couch in a television studio somewhere, sat Phillip and Ursula, smiling and nodding. They each had hands crossed on their knees. Ursula kept glancing at the camera. She looked like Henry’s aunt Dotty, but with all her edges hardened. The two of them talked about their amazing endurance, the difficulty of bicycling through the Andes, how they had never given up hope of finishing their trek even after being abducted in Colombia, the size of their book deal, and their discussions with film agents.

In a general way, Henry remembered all they had said. But there were two things that sat in the front of his mind, every syllable in concrete.

“Are you closer now?” the woman had asked them. “After going through all of this together?”

Ursula had leaned forward. Phillip had leaned back. “You know,” Ursula had said. “We’ve both changed a great deal during this whole process. We really need to get to know each other again. But first we need to get to know ourselves.”

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Wonderful series!

This is a second book in a trilogy and I expected a "trasnition" type of book where there are more details given but only enough to move the story to the final book in the series. However, this book is good enough to stand on it's own. and watching the main character grow and develop from a shy quiet boy to a person of power and how he handeled it was just perfect. I love the raggant and want one of my own! But aside from that it's the kind of series you can curl up with and read over and over. The characters are engaging The story flows smoothly and no one does anything out of character just to move the plot along. Also while there are a lot of characters to keep track of their personalities are distinct enough that you don't get them all mixed up with each other.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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Reviewed by Allison Fraclose for TeensReadToo.com

Only a couple of weeks have passed since Henry York and his cousin, Henrietta, had their adventure in the mysterious cupboards adorning the wall of Henry's attic room.

Since he'd come to live with his aunt, uncle, and cousins in Kansas, Henry discovered the hidden wall of cupboards accidentally, and learned that each one leads to a different time and place. Built by their grandfather, who listed the combinations to the different worlds in his journal, the cupboards can only be traveled through via the large cupboard in Grandfather's room, which had been locked tight until the battle with the witch of Endor.

Henry's aunt and uncle receive a letter from his parent's lawyer saying that Henry must return to Boston in two weeks. Henry can't stand the thought of going back, especially now that he might have more of a history in one of the cupboard worlds than he'd ever imagined, and he grows desperate to escape through the door to Badon Hill, which calls to him in his dreams.

Henrietta, who'd stolen the key to Grandfather's bedroom so that she could explore the cupboards on her own, finally relents, and she and Henry go behind the barn to retrieve the key. While Henry keeps watch in the growing storm and Henrietta digs, he spots a curious dandelion that appears to glow. Reaching for it, Henry sees a flash of light and is knocked unconscious, with only a dandelion shaped burn on his hand to indicate what happened.

After a stranger visits him in his dreams, and he awakens blind, Henry knows that he must escape into the cupboards to find a better explanation of what's happening to him. Unfortunately, less compassionate forces are already interested in his growing abilities...

I must admit that I liked this book much better than its forerunner, 100 CUPBOARDS, if only for the fact that I felt much more involved with the characters and that we find out more about the history of the cupboards. Everything comes together in this volume, and, taken as a whole, this original concept makes for an interesting, action-filled story that will keep horror and fantasy lovers on their toes.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.

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9928215

Posted October 24, 2011

Outrageously Creative

Just like the prequel to this book,"100 Cupboards", it is obvious that N.D.Wilson has worked another miracle. He has used the same amazing techniques that so entranced me when I read "100 Cupboards" in this work of art. Keep writing!

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted March 6, 2013

This is my favorite book.

I like action packed books,and this is one of them

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted June 19, 2012

Read the book!!!!!

Flourd01yu are so wrong about it because it is a good book and it doesn't suck eggs like you do so maybe you should stop telling everbody it's a bad series because then they won't read the books now i am here to telll everyon that FLOURD01 is wrong about this book read it BIGG TIME!!!!!!!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted May 1, 2012

LOVE IT

I LOVE THE SERIES AND LOVE IT EVEMN MORE BECAUSE ITS FOR ALL AGES. Selina IRwin 12

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted December 25, 2011

So Far So Good

It's a nice book. A little confusing at times, but pretty good. I think it could be a couple of dollars less, however.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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NO ONE I REPEAT NO ONE SHOULD READ THIS GOSH AWEFUL BOOK! IT IS A TERRIBLE BOOK! I PERSONALLY LOVED ONE HUNDERED CUPBOARDS, BUT THAT WAS A DISGRACE TO THE THREE BOOKS! SO NOW I AM NOT SURE IF I SHOULD EVEN READ THE CHESTNUT KING! IF YOU THINK MY OVERVIEW WAS AGREEABLE THAN WRITE I AGREE WITH FLOUR01! I HPOE SOME PEOPLE HAVE ENOUGH COMMON SENSE TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GOOD BOOK AND A BAD BOOK!

1 out of 11 people found this review helpful.

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Cson

Posted February 6, 2010

I Also Recommend:

Henry Sleeps Next To 99 Portals...

Henry York sleeps next to 99 otherworldly portals in his aunt and uncle's attic. He owns his own pocket-knife, plays baseball, defeated an evil sorceress and--to top it all off--doesn't have to sleep with a therapeutic bear anymore. So he's disappointed when his adoptive and overly protective parents are rescued from their abductees in South America and send for his return.

But that was before a certain dandelion messed everything up and the whole world disappears.

N. D. Wilson is pretty much the most talented author writing Christian YA fiction nowadays. His characters are complex, his wit is hilarious and his world creating abilities are incredible. This is one of those books you'll like more and more with every reread.

www.hornspoonreviews.webs.com

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted December 13, 2014

Is this a good book?

I have read 100 cuboards (loved it) and don't know if i should read this. I'm 12 years old and some people say its good, and some people say this book is bad. So is this book good for my age? If it is, say in the title "you should read this Brycen." Thank you :-) - Brycen

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Anonymous

Posted July 25, 2014

To below

Agree :-)

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Anonymous

Posted July 21, 2014

Dandelion Fire

Just like 100 cupboards! Awesome book:-)

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Anonymous

Posted January 14, 2014

Really good!!

This book is great kinda boring in the middle but just get past it and its amazing!! How is the third?

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Anonymous

Posted October 6, 2013

THE BOOK IS GREAT

It is good so far

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Anonymous

Posted August 17, 2013

Grover

Boring

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Anonymous

Posted August 6, 2013

SUCHAN AWESOME BOOK

I love love love loved the free sample. I just wish the book cost less!

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Anonymous

Posted June 8, 2013

DO NOT GET THIS BOOK

HORRIBLE...A HUGE WASTE OF MONEY!!!!!!

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted February 18, 2013

Loving it

Im in the middle of reading this book and its amazing its well written i love it

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Anonymous

Posted January 14, 2013

Dnjxjcjd

Dnshsjdj

0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

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Anonymous

Posted December 26, 2012

Hey idk

Here is some advice. Ive read 100 cupboards and I loved it. Iwill agree that Dandelion Fire is confusing. I would reccomend going to a library and getting it before buying it, to see if you like it.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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